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Three local homicides remain unsolved 50 years later
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Published: January 12, 2010
"Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
-Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene V
I love a good mystery; I have three for you today. Iredell County has a backlog of "cold cases" waiting to be solved, some going back a half century or more.
Two infamous unsolved local murders have been featured in this column previously, that of Hubert "Black Cat" Sherrill, who was shot to death just north of Mooresville in July of 1929, and that of Mrs. Lou Cree Westmoreland, whose body was recovered from a well near Troutman in January of 1937.
Here is a trio of Iredell County cases, each more than 50 years old that as far as this writer knows, have yet to be solved. The information came from contemporary newspaper accounts of the crimes.
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Carl Lee Cline, 36, of Newton, a truck driver by profession, was born in Catawba County in 1908.
Apparently he was assaulted and his body thrown, or he accidentally fell, from the Catawba River Bridge on Highway 70, between Iredell and Catawba counties on the night of Sept. 1, 1945.
Cline had gotten into an altercation with several men at the Riverside Service Station on the Iredell side of the river near the bridge.
The Landmark reported, "...several men were chasing Cline out in the direction of the bridge. Four of his pursuers are charged with throwing him from the bridge, the fall resulting in injuries from which Cline died about an hour later. The men involved are all from Catawba County, but the disturbance took place over the Iredell side of the river.
"Witnesses told of Cline having trouble with other guests at the road house over a serving of beer, resulting in a fight. Several men were said to have attacked Cline and he ran out in the direction of the river bridge, pursued by a number of men."
Four of the men were arrested and questioned, but were never brought to trial due to a lack of evidence.
Cline fell some 70 feet and might have had a chance had he hit deep water, but instead, he hit a sand bar. Barely surviving the fall, he died in Davis Hospital a little after midnight.
His death certificate in part reads that he "was thrown or fell from bridge over the Catawba River."
The probability that the truth about Mr. Cline's death will be determined is remote because, as they say, "too much water has flowed under the bridge" since the events.
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Lonnie Bird Shaver, 48, a Statesville automobile dealer, was getting into his car to head home from work on the evening of Sept. 25, 1947. His car was in a parking lot near his Pontiac dealership at 122 West Front Street. As he settled into the car seat, a large man forced his way into the vehicle with Shaver.
Shaver, a World War I veteran, was later found, barely alive, on Bear Poplar Road in the Cleveland community of Rowan County. He had either received a brutal beating from a party or parties unknown, or had been struck by an automobile.
Iredell Sheriff Walter Morrison and his deputies "surmised that a hit-and-run car had struck Shaver as he sat or stood part-way outside his car, the door being thrown against him and crushing him fatally."
Shaver's eyeglasses and a shoe were found on the highway a mile from where he was found. There were dents in Shaver's car.
Just how this related, if it did, to the man that had accosted Shaver in Statesville is not known.
Shaver died in Long's Hospital from internal injuries less than two weeks later, on Oct. 5, 1947. He had not been robbed and police were unable to discover a motive. Under "cause of death" on his death certificate, it reads, "under investigation."
Shaver was born in Iredell County in 1899. He is buried in Section "G" of Oakwood Cemetery, Statesville.
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A gunshot wound to the abdomen brought about the demise of Joseph Fredrick "Joe" Duncan, 46, a plumbing contractor, at his business, Duncan Heating and Plumbing Company, 118-122 Court Street, Statesville, during an attempted burglary on Monday night, Dec. 11, 1950.
The Landmark reported that "A well-dressed man entered and pulled a gun on him with robbery as the apparent motive."
Duncan struggled with the man and in the process the robber's .32 caliber pistol discharged. Duncan remained conscious long enough to telephone the police and to give them a description of his assailant before he passed into a coma.
Duncan, a South Carolinian born on March 6, 1904, described the would-be robber as "a young man, 30 to 35 years of age, medium size, and wearing a gray suit and a gray overcoat."
Four loaded cartridges and the gun's cylinder were found in the shop, as well as the assailant's hat. Duncan died in the H. F. Long Hospital five days later, on Dec. 16th. His death certificate reads in part, "shot by hold-up man."
Like Mr. Shaver mentioned above, he is interred in Section "G" of Oakwood Cemetery.
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One cannot help but speculate that if law enforcement had possessed some of today's forensic equipment and techniques 50 years ago, at least some of these cases might have been moved into the "solved" file.
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